Exclusive Interview With Ms. Beatrice Lippus, Associate Vice President, Transportation – Cyient

Rail Analysis India : Before we understand your industry views, can you give us a bit of background on Cyient and yourself?

Ms. Beatrice Lippus : Cyient is a global rail engineering solutions provider with over 25 years of rich engineering heritage. We have been in the Railway industry for the last 14 years, and have extended engineering support to over 200 projects globally. We have partnered with our customers to deliver technologically superior products, achieve faster time-to-market and deliver projects in a cost-efficient manner in the segments of rolling stock and signalling – across the globe. We partner with rolling stock OEMs and rail signalling providers enabling them to effectively Design, Build and Maintain assets and efficiently realize projects globally.

I have been with Cyient for 10+ years now, and I’m an Associate Vice President at Cyient’s Transportation Business Unit and Managing Director of our German entity. I’m actually half Swiss which probably can explain my passion for railways – as Switzerland is known to be a country where there is a divided opinion on whether we set our trains by clocks. Or the other way around. Just for your reference, an average Swiss person travels 2430 kilometres by train every year.

Rail Analysis India : Just a few days back, the budget has been announced and it includes the highest capital expenditures for Transportation. How do you assess the status of fasttracking of modernization?

Ms. Beatrice Lippus : With the focus we have seen over the past few years on this segment, I definitely believe India as a nation is well poised to handle the accelerated modernization as well as the challenges associated with it. The recent budget announcement is a good example, I would especially like to highlight the focus on safety and increased use of new technologies which is emphasized in there. To me, rail industry’s “raison d’être” are safety, reliability, and efficiency – with digitization and IoT being key technology drivers to it. Smart railway networks leverage interconnected technological solutions combined with modern infrastructure such as automatic ticket systems, digital displays, and smart meters. However, the specifics of railway industry being legacy heavy, project driven and technology focused require from my perspective an adaptation of IoT compared to consumer world as an “Internet of Trains” – for which the investments as envisaged are definitely needed. It is heartening to see that the Indian ecosystem is investing heavily to scale up the current legacy systems to new generation technologies for which we have seen the benefit in the global projects we have been involved with already – whether it is the TCAS or ETCS or the CBTC based technologies.

Image Credit : Cyient

Rail Analysis India : And how do you see India embedded in a global context there?

Ms. Beatrice Lippus : In the recent budget announcement, India has shown its plans to procure a significant amount of physical assets as well as leverage on global partnerships for transfer of technology collaborations, in order to leverage on the strong partnerships that India has across the globe, especially also in the rail industry already for many years. We at Cyient have seen that for many of our rail customers, India has been a key market in the recent years. There are some key dimensions, which are universal to rail projects globally and play a decisive role in the execution strategy (e.g. reflected in certain international standards and the recent updates of the same) – and India as a nation needs to ensure that we leverage upon the lessons learnt there globally through these global partnerships. We at Cyient have been an integral part of the Indian railway ecosystem for several years now and have made a significant contribution to various projects across the country leveraging our global experience built in the last 14 years. Our contribution to this ecosystem has doubled in the last two years, and we are really excited to participate in the modernization journey.

Image Credit : Cyient

Rail Analysis India : I guess this very much applies to metro projects in India. So what do you think about the continued focus on metro projects, your view and experiences there?

Ms. Beatrice Lippus : From my perspective, the metro revolution is a much required and a much deserved reform for the metropolitan cities and for the young and aspirational population of India. As data shows, majority of the economic development in India is centered around its cities and the population migrating to the cities is growing by the day. This is not only stretching the existing transportation infrastructure but also causing an adverse impact on the environment, as seen by the unprecedented pollution levels in major cities. The metro system alleviates both these problems, besides opening up huge economic development opportunities along it network. I can only compliment the decisiveness and cooperation demonstrated by all concerned authorities in executing these projects.


This is part of Our Special Edition Magazine 2018 , To Check it out , Please view it here : Read Here


Image Credit : Cyient